


Knowing Now

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Series: DouWata 30 Day OTP Challenge [14]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Coping, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post - Major Character Death, Post - xxxHoLic Ro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 04:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4593468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time after Person A has tragically died, Person B sits alone and apologizes for what happened.</p><hr/><p>Seeing as how Watanuki is frozen in time, he has lots of time on his hands to think. And remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing Now

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from the OTP Prompts Tumblr.
> 
> Yo, guys, I'm back! I'm gonna try to make up for the lull and post a couple of these a day, but if I don't manage that, it'll just run over into September a bit. Thanks for sticking around!
> 
> I do not own _xxxHoLic_. Thanks for reading!

The crushing guilt comes less often than Watanuki expected that it would. Or perhaps it's that it comes less often than it should. But Watanuki has never been the one to do things in such a normal way, not even on the day when Sayaka had shown up in his entranceway, sorrow deep-set into his eyes and Watanuki had known instantly, a sort of mental telepathy: Doumeki was gone. Even then, Watanuki had looked down at the younger, near identical man in front of him, blew smoke from his lungs when he could no longer hold his breath in, and said evenly _"Take as much time as you need"_.

Sayaka had come back the next day, but Watanuki struggles to follow his own advice.

The guilt does come less often than it should, but even unchanging shopkeepers of dimensional shops cannot escape it forever.

He sends Sayaka home early, because he cannot bear to look at him any longer. He does not tell him that, of course, but Sayaka goes without question or comment. So very much like Doumeki, and for a moment, Watanuki gives in to the pain in his chest and the ache in his throat, the one that has been there for a very long time without him knowing it.

"You deserved so much better." The words fall from his lips before he realizes that he has spoken, but is alone, on par with his usual, and it doesn't matter. "So much..."

For a moment, if he closes his eyes, he can see himself back when he was young (younger), and how forsakenly noisy he had been, yelling, gesticulating, unihibited by power and choice. And then he can see the transformation, from part-timer to shopkeeper, and he can see Doumeki, there every second. It isn't a pretty picture, and Watanuki needs to open his eyes.

He raises them heavenward. "... You really were a dumb bastard." The words taste like metal on his tongue, metallic, and bitter, and his heart clenches in his chest. He presses his hand against the steady beat of his heart beneath his skin, and breathes in shakily. "I could never give you what you deserved, but you stayed. And that was something that _I_ didn't deserve."

Watanuki no longer has time for regrets. What had gone had gone - with the exception of one very important woman missing from this shop; she would return, and he would be free - and that was all. His tears were numbered, reserved for only the fewest and far in between now, but his eyes sting as he stares off into the clouds.

He had been foolish when he had been younger. That much was obvious. There's no changing it now, and so he needs to push it away. And he will, but he needs this moment. He needs it to breathe, and to think, and to speak.

"I'm sorry."

He barely breathes the words, and they still dig uncomfortably into his heart. He presses his hand more firmly against his chest, and lets the aftershocks die down slowly. He should be used to it, but he suspects he will never escape it entirely.

Loss.

 _I'm so sorry._ Watanuki reaches for his glass of saké, and raises a toast to the clouds above. Doumeki had chosen to stay with him for those many, many years, and Watanuki wasn't oblivious to the reason why any longer. But the truth of the matter was that it hadn't mattered, because it wasn't something that he could reciprocate without pressing on his conscience. It wasn't something that they could say without changing the dynamic of their lives.

Doumeki must have been okay with that, because... he had stayed.

It seems so pathetic to say, but Watanuki hopes - no, _wishes_ \- that it had been enough to pay him back for everything he had done. No, he doesn't have regrets, but that doesn't mean he doesn't wonder.

"Absent friends," he murmurs, and then drinks.

Not so long ago (although quite long ago), he wouldn't even have been able to say that. Now he can, and he does, and he mourns quietly, without fuss or flail, and drinks by himself, and imagines that Doumeki is still drinking with him to this day.

 


End file.
